Self-Improvement Tips

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Bring joy and fulfilment into your life. Life can be as joyous and meaningful as we choose to make it. Joy is what makes life beautiful. It runs deeper than mere ‘pleasure’, is more enduring than mere ‘fun’, and is more intense and thrilling than mere ‘happiness’. Joy is what helps us to get through challenges, heals our wounds, inspires us to greatness, and fills our souls with goodness. What brings joy and fulfilment into your life may be completely different from what provides others a sense of satisfaction and achievement.“The road to self-fulfilment is different for everyone. Everyone has a special plan and purpose on this Earth. That is why your path to personal fulfilment will take a unique course as well as present different opportunities to realize it”.
As human beings, we give a great deal of meaning, or no meaning at all, to various things in life. Sometimes we give more value and significance to things like a new car, a fancy house or the latest gadget on the market, rather than spending our energy and time on things which can contribute more value and joy to our lives.“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life”. ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen
You can find meaning and satisfaction in your life if you know where to look for it. To help you find your path, there are some day to day ways that people have come to follow in order to reach a significant and rich life. You can use these following steps as guide to bring joy and fulfilment into your life:
1- Choose your words wisely:“You can’t take back words you’ve already said, and you can’t take back someone’s tears that already shed”. We all have our favourite expressions, the ones we come out with now and again. We are constantly bombarded with the words of others. What do our words say about us? How the words of others affect us? What effects do these words have on us, on our emotions, on how we value ourselves? We can play this game a few times, we will discover just how the words we use and the words we hear every day can affects our moods and transform our feelings for good or bad. And with this awareness we will start choosing our words more carefully, selecting those which make us feel good, bringing joy and fulfilment into our life, and avoiding those which make us feeling bad. “Simply by changing your habitual vocabulary – the words you consistently use to describethe emotions of your life– you can instantaneously change how you think, how you feel, and how you live.” ~ Tony Robbins
2- Love and accept yourself:“We are who we are, and no amount of wishful thinking will make us someone else, will make us different”. So accept yourself for who you are, and be willing to improve and take appropriate steps to change yourself, if it is possible for you to do so. Acceptance is not giving up or resignation. It is recognizing of things as they are; a recognition that can help us to move on with our lives, enhancing ourselves, making our lives and our experiences more positive and more fulfilling. Self-acceptance also involves the idea of having compassion for ourselves and love ourselves despite all our limitations, weaknesses and imperfections. “Love yourself, accept yourself, forgive yourself, and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.” ~Leo F. Buscaglia
3- Work to build up your self image: You bring no joy into your life if you don’t like your image of yourself; you can’t live on the top floor of a building which has no foundation. You will not find joy in work, in travel, in conversation, in power, in money, or in beautiful scenery, if your self image is inadequate. Search around in your mind each day for your successful memories. Get into the habit of searching those wonderful moments, and bring these realistically joyful times front stage centre. See yourself this way successful, acting and thinking the way you like to act and think; reactive these positive images each day. Not only must you focus on your picture of contentment, but you must also be kind to your areas of weakness, if the joy and fulfilment are to be factors in your life.
4- Unearth your hidden wealth: What is this hidden wealth? It is your creative gifts, your talents, your abilities for doing and for giving. But why do you keep them hidden? Is it because you fear of criticism or because your resources, unused to exposure, may seem imperfect? Almost every person alive has some area of excellence, some genius, the expression of which make him/her feel more alive, more important as a person. What a pity that so much of this self- expression is wasted! For undeveloped resources have no more value than unmined, buried precious metals. If you cannot reach them and bring them into open, others do not even know they exist. Worse still, even you do not know of their existence and in your ignorance, you deprive yourself of so much joy and fulfilment. You don’t need shovels or bulldozers, land titles or contracts to unearth your precious gifts; all you need is this determination that you are going to give yourself and your spirit the same loving attention that you would to the treasures of your material world, your car, your front lawn or your kitchen. “Don’t die with your music still in you” ~ Wayne Dyer
5- Give to others: This is a world in which sometimes the only thing that seems to matter is the “fast buck”. It is one of the great tragedies of civilized life today that we emphasize less importance on giving to others without any expectation. Yet there are still people, even though they won’t admit it, have a tremendous craving for love and acceptance. They also long to express their goodness, to give of themselves. Through careful, considerate treatment which may surprise most people or even arouse their suspicions, if they feel that your friendliness is genuine, they will respond warmly. If they have long felt deprived of affection, the extent of their gratitude may amaze you. The Law of Giving is really simple: if you want more joy, give joy to others. If you want love, learn to give love. If you want happiness, help others become happy. And if you want to become wealthy, learn to help others become materially affluent. True wealth is not shown through earthly possessions, but by leading a fulfilling life. And there is nothing more fulfilling than knowing we have made a tangible difference in the lives of other people. In helping others with no self-serving motives, we may find the greatest satisfaction we have ever known. “Give others all that is alive in you; your interest, understanding, your knowledge, your humour, everything in you that’s good. In doing so, we enhance the sense of aliveness in others while enhancing our own. When we give, we get a ‘heightened vitality’ of what it means to be human.” ~Erich Fromm
6- Set worthy goals: Having goals and working towards them is an essential part of being human. It gives us a sense of direction, purpose and meaning in life. It is not only enough to select goals, but to focus our attention on them, and then achieve them.
Part of finding joy and fulfilment in life is to have a Higher Purpose. Something to strive for that is larger than us. It is everyone’s desire to matter and to make a difference in this world, whether at work or in other people’s life. And by giving to someone or something that is bigger than us, is how we achieve deep meaning and satisfaction in our lives. We all need to feel that our lives stand for something and we make somehow useful contribution to this world. We can only find joy and fulfilment in our lives when we find ourselves working towards something which is important to us. Viktor E. Frankl once said: “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
7- Nurture and enjoy loving relationships: Relationships are one of the biggest sources of joy and fulfilment in human lives. Studies show that people who have large, supportive circle of family and friends, a fulfilling marriage, and a thriving social life, are more content and satisfied in their lives. That’s why nurturing our relationships with our loved ones is one of the best emotional investments we can make. If we concentrate to build connection with others, we will soon receive the benefits of more positive emotions. And as we become happier, we will attract more people and higher-quality relationships, leading to even greater positivity and enjoyment. It’s the happiness gift that keeps on giving. These relationships we have with people who we love and care about, and the people who love and care about us, determine of how we are doing as human beings. “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” ~ Anais Nin

Your life is yours alone. Others can try to advise you, but they can’t make a choice for you. The way we live our lives is important as it impacts our community, our society and the world. Our positive contribution to the community and society paves the way for the development and enhancement of many lives. The good impact that we leave behind initiate others to do better. The better is developed into the best by others that follow; so, the good legacy that we leave behind helps the world to become better. It’s not about earning a name or fame, it’s about giving back, as we all want our loved ones to have the best to their disposal and live a good and better life.“There are certain things fundamental to human fulfilment. The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase ‘to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy” ~ Stephen Covey